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Charge of the Light Brigade |
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Charge of the Light Brigade
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by MGM (Warner)
Sales Rank: 5855
Price: $14.98
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Why is <I>The Charge of the Light Brigade</I> so rarely even mentioned among Errol Flynn's swashbucklers? It's a terrific movie, something like the peak of spectacular Hollywood action filmmaking and the bravura style of Michael Curtiz. The setting--till the Crimean War climax--is the Indian frontier (impersonated, as so often, by rocky Lone Pine, California), where the 27th Bengal Lancers run afoul of an Oxford-educated slime named Surat Khan (C. Henry Gordon). Flynn and Olivia de Havilland bring real tenderness to two-thirds of a romantic triangle (the other corner is the hero's brother, Patric Knowles). There's the fearsome siege of Chukoti, an unspeakable atrocity, and finally the foolhardy, inspired Charge at Balaklava. The camerawork and editing of that grand sequence never cease to astonish. History (and political correctness) is better served by the 1968 Tony Richardson movie, but for unabashed epic sweep and matchless thrills, this is the one you want. <I>--Richard T. Jameson</I>
Viewer Reviews
For some reason, THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE (directed in 1936 by Michael Curtiz) is always forgotten when people talk about Errol Flynn's movies. It's one of the all-time greats for Flynn, in which he plays gallant Major Vickers, an officer in the 27th Lancers, whose personal story entwines with the horrors of the Crimean War.
Major Geoffrey Vickers (Errol Flynn) is engaged to lovely Elsa Campbell (Olivia de Havilland), the daughter of one of his superiors (Donald Crisp). Unbeknowst to Geoffrey, Elsa has also fallen in love with his younger brother Perry (Patric Knowles). This stormy love triangle is set against the violent conflict in the Crimean. When the British outpost of Chukoti is stormed and all the occupants massacred by the bloodthirsty forces of Surat Khan (C. Henry Gordon), Geoffrey and Elsa narrowly escape with their lives. Geoffrey then leads the members of the 27th Lancers into the fray, determined to avenge those who needlessly perished in Chukoti...
Based around the famed poem by Tennyson (and loosely modeled on factual events), THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE was the first pairing of Flynn and de Havilland following their celebrated debut in the previous years' "Captain Blood" (and also directed by Michael Curtiz). The film's showstopping highlight is the Light Brigade charge itself; a hair-raising, nine minute sequence which earned second unit director Jack Sullivan a specially-awarded Oscar. So many horses were either seriously injured or killed in this sequence that the American Humane Association brought in new laws for treating animals in motion pictures.
Maybe the reason why CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE fails to be mentioned in the same breath as "Captain Blood" or "Adventures of Robin Hood" is because it is much more than a swashbuckler, and it's meaning runs a lot deeper than most Flynn vehicles. This is a grand historical epic with passion and pride; it's certainly a movie to revisit again and again.
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